Institute of Archaeology Annual Lecture 2013

Chris Stringer
(Natural History Museum) will give the Institute of Archaeology Annual
Lecture 2013 on 1 May with a presentation entitled 'Human Evolution in
Europe'.

Prof Stringer's lecture will be held in
the Christopher Ingold XLG1 Chemistry Lecture Theatre at UCL and will
be followed by a drinks reception in the A.G. Leventis Gallery of
Cypriot and Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology at the Institute. All are welcome to attend.

Abstract

Human Evolution in Europe

Thirty years ago, Europe was considered to be a locus for the evolution of Homo sapiens,
with the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition paralleling a gradual
transformation of the Neanderthals into modern humans. However since
then, accumulating fossil, archaeological and genetic evidence has
suggested that its mid-late Pleistocene record documents the appearance
and physical extinction of the Neanderthals. Nevertheless, the early
history of humans in Europe is much more complex than that.

The earliest occupants may well have resembled those known at Dmanisi, while the species Homo antecessor was present in Iberia around the time of the Matuyama-Brunhes boundary. The mode of transition to Homo heidelbergensis
by about 600 ka is uncertain, and the large Sima de los Huesos sample
from Atapuerca is central to debate about the status of this species,
and its relationship to the Neanderthals. Although it is claimed that
this assemblage represents heidelbergensis and dates from ~600
ka, the clear Neanderthal affinities are in conflict with other fossil
and genetic estimates of the origin of the Neanderthal lineage. Instead
it seems more likely that the bulk of the material is much younger than
500 ka and represents a primitive form of Homo neanderthalensis. By
~400 ka Neanderthal affinities may be apparent at Swanscombe, but more
archaic morphologies were still present at Ceprano and Bilzingsleben,
and perhaps also at Vértesszőlős and Petralona. Moving on to the late
Pleistocene, the physical and cultural juncture between neanderthalensis and sapiens
continues to look complex, with new archaeological and chronological
data, and genomic evidence of the survival of Neanderthal DNA in extant
humans. However, how much interaction there actually was between these
populations in Europe and beyond remains to be established.